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2 months ago | 
the-tls.co.uk | John Arlidge |Beejay Silcox |Kevin Brazil |Richard Smyth
Philip Larkin’s view of what parents do to their children might explain why “tech bros” have the ability, determination and drive needed to become global disruptors. Elon Musk’s combative relationship with his father instilled a drive to overcome any obstacle. Steve Jobs, who was given up for adoption, told his biographer Walter Isaacson: “Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent”.
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2 months ago | 
the-tls.co.uk | Beejay Silcox |Kevin Brazil |Richard Smyth |Noreen Masud
There has been a great deal of institutional handwringing since the Australian writer Richard Flanagan won – and politely accepted – the 2024 Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction in November, but spurned the attendant cash. (He said he would not accept the £50,000 prize money until the financial management firm commits to a reduction in fossil-fuel investment).
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
ca.news.yahoo.com | Richard Smyth
On the sunlit chalk downlands of southern England, a flitting bright-blue butterfly poses an identification puzzle. Could it be an adonis blue? A chalkhill blue? A common blue? I am not on the sunlit chalk downlands of southern England. I am among brambles, in a sloping reach of untended land that separates the train station from the waters of Bradford Beck, at one time the most polluted river in England.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
msn.com | Richard Smyth
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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Aug 7, 2024 | 
the-fence.com | Andrew Murray |Richard Smyth |George Lee |Joe Bishop
A whistle-stop tour of London’s disappointing barons and the peers we could’ve had. Barons: we imagine them as rural land magnates, shagging the wives of their miserable villein tenantry or bullying King John into signing Magna Carta. Newsflash, House of Lords-heads. There are modern, urban barons too. Barons, indeed, who stalk the very streets of our capital. Plenty of opportunity there, you’d think, for maverick aristos with amusing names. Alas no: meet the real (and imagined) Barons of London.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
the-fence.com | Richard Smyth |George Lee |Joe Bishop |Jordan Michelman
Meeting some charming men in Nottinghamshire There was a brief window, back there in the twenty-teens, where, if you wanted, you could buy something on Amazon and – thanks to Amazon’s now-defunct Smile programme – have 0.5 percent of the purchase price donated to the Odinist Fellowship of Newark-on-Trent. This is the kind of quaint anachronism that comes up fairly often in the Odinist game.
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Jul 15, 2024 | 
the-fence.com | Margaret Mitchell |John Phipps |Andrew Murray |Richard Smyth
Learning the secret of eternal life. Ciro Orsini has a charming gap in his teeth, which makes it possible to recognise him in the celebrity photos covering the walls of his Knightsbridge institution. Ciro’s Pomodoro is a pizza joint that’s been running for 46 years on Beauchamp Place.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
bbc.com | Richard Smyth
Coal mining created community and culture. Can clean energy do the same? Getty ImagesDespite the dangers, companionship was fostered in coal mines (Credit: Getty Images)It was dirty and dangerous, but coal mining also cultivated pride, companionship, and art, writes Richard Smyth. Could communities living alongside wind turbines or solar panels embrace their own forms of industrial culture? The age of coal may be drawing to a close – and not before time, most would agree.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
msn.com | Richard Smyth
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
ca.news.yahoo.com | Richard Smyth
‘Wild camomile … is also known as pineappleweed. I squidge a flower between my fingers to remind myself why.’‘Wild camomile … is also known as pineappleweed. I squidge a flower between my fingers to remind myself why.’ Photograph: Nigel Cattlin/AlamyThe cricket field has been freshly mown and marked, but it doesn’t feel like summer. It feels like late March or early April, those cool just-spring days of greentops and low bounce.
